Conflict towards who I am

[MilkywayVoyager]

Hi. Lately, I've been feeling a bit conflicted about my identity. Like, I don't know who I am anymore. While I know my personality traits and the things I like, I always end up constantly doubting whether I really like them or not. I ask people I'm close to about it and they don't take me seriously. If I consider myself a mature and centered person, but my family keeps saying I'm childish just because I like cartoons or Sanrio, which of these is true? I ask myself in the sense that I want to see how people perceive me and how I impact them, that's important to me. Or if I'm emotionally intelligent or not. If I'm strong, even though I'm afraid to start new things sometimes, even if I get nervous a little when I talk to strangers. My family judges me for that, for being a little distant. They say I'm weird. It kinda hurts, but I chose not to care too much.

[Heather]

I don't think this is an either/or! Loads of mature, grounded adults love things like cartoons or Sanrio or other things some adults may deem as "childish." Enjoying sweet things and experiencing wonder isn't just for kids, it's part of being alive! Being emotionally intelligent and being afraid to start new things are also things that can, and often do, live inside the same person.

Between this and your other post, it sounds like your family is really hard on you and not supportive. It also sounds like they may even be verbally abusive with you sometimes: in your other post you talked about them saying hurtful things to you, and here you're talking about them calling you weird. Withholding attention and love is also a kind of emotional abuse. I wonder if the root issue here isn't so much you not knowing who you are as you not having emotional support from people around you AS the person you are?

[MilkywayVoyager]

Yeah. I think you're right. But I don't know what to do about it. I still kinda wanna figure who I am

[Heather]

Honestly, that's the work of a lifetime, not one-time: being alive is all about the neverending and constant process about finding out who we are as people. It's not something we figure out once and then are done.

In terms of your family, do you have plans to live independently at any point?

[MilkywayVoyager]

I plan on living alone one day, but not right now. I'm not financially independent yet. They act like that but they don't mean bad, and they never were abusive physically towards me. They say they're worried I won't have any friends or won't be able to handle things myself. I know there's no malice behind it, but I understand how it can be abusive and make me doubt myself or think of myself in a bad light.
I still want to know what I'm like. It's easier to me if someone says it, so I can be sure, not because I'm pushover or passive.

[HannahP]

Hey there MilkywayVoyager!

It does seem like you're experiencing a lot of self doubt and that makes a lot of sense if people in your life are often telling you that they perceive you in a different way than you perceive yourself. That is a really tough thing to deal with.

There are a lot of factors that go into our identity or "who we are." One thing I see you struggling with is about whether other people have a clearer view of us from the outside or whether our own view is clearer from the inside. I can tell that you value knowing what kind of impressions other people have of you and it's confusing if they don't match up with your own experience of yourself.

One thing that helps me is to think of myself as someone who has a lot of different "parts" or aspects of myself that come out in different situations. For example, I might be silly and "childish" when I play on the swingset with my partner's daughter, but mature and centered when I'm at work. Maybe my work colleagues could never imagine me running around a playground being goofy, and maybe my friends would be surprised how grown up I can sound in a meeting!

I also try to remember that other people's perceptions of me are affected by their own experiences and their own personality traits. For example, one friend of mine might think I'm a tidy and organized person (because her apartment is messier than mine), while another friend might think I'm a disorganized person (because he keeps his apartment cleaner than mine). So who is right? In my opinion, it doesn't really matter — I try to focus on what I value (how clean I like my apartment to be) and, if someone lived with me, I would take their opinion into account too, because I value being a good roommate.

Does that make sense? How do you feel about it?

[MilkywayVoyager]

It makes me feel better about myself. It's true that people see us differently than we see ourselves. We live in our own heads all the time, we know what we like and don't like, and other people have no idea. But how can I be sure that what I think of myself isn't something I'm forcing? Or if I'm just brushing off their opinions?

[HannahP]

I'm glad that helped you feel better!

Personally, I prefer to focus on my values over my personality traits. Like in the example I gave above about keeping my apartment clean — who knows if I'm a clean person or a messy person? Everyone who knows me, including myself, could have a different opinion! But instead of thinking "I'm a clean person" or "I'm a messy person," I can think "I value having clean counters and dishes in my kitchen so that it's easy for me to cook" or "I like keeping a stack of books on my bedside table where I like to read and I don't really care if it looks a bit cluttered."

What I like about this is that no one else can tell you you're wrong about what you value. And you can value something without being perfect at it! I do value having a clean kitchen, but right now, my sink is full of dishes. Oh well! It's something I'm working on.